Brown graciously offers to run the country as PM for a few more months with a LibLab pact, and then will step down after Labour has chosen a new leader. Thanks, Gordon, but do you mind awfully if we pass on this one?

This is all highly disgusting and highly predictable. Brown and a few of his inner circle come up with this cunning plan, no consultation with the cabinet, just him and his favourite spin doctors. You only need to watch the 5.30pm Sky News interview with Alastair Campbell by Adam Boulton to see the Labour party imploding. Embarrassing. You expect such nonsense from banana republics.

That's the bad news. There is good news, at last. What wasn't predictable about all this was that Brown would announce this decision to the public. If it was an appeal to Clegg then I think it was a big mistake. Brown is clearly flailing around, desperate to cling to power.

I'm hoping that this lessens the probability of a LibDem-Labour relationship, the more natural of the two possible coalitions. Not that I'm keen on a LibDem-Conservative pairing up, I'm almost as worried by the thought of Proportional Representation as I am by the thought of higher taxes!